“When I got my first job in an ad agency in London it was a bit overwhelming.

Nobody in my family had ever worked in the capital, or any big city for that matter, so there was nobody I could ask for advice.
But I took my work seriously, maybe too seriously for some people, and after work I really did not want to socialise with advertising people, I got enough of them at work.
Fortunately for me a school friend had been living and working in London for a couple of years.
She knew her way around the west end, and was training to be a nurse at University College Hospital.
So we would meet up about once a week, and I knew she worked very hard and was very dedicated to her training.
Sometimes she would visit my office in Covent Garden and just sit and take it all in, quietly overwhelmed herself at the amount of money flowing through this business, money that the NHS didn’t have.
One evening we went out for a drink in a pub in St Martin’s Lane.
My nursing friend asked what was bothering me and I got pretty verbal and angry about a client who kept turning down my ideas for a trade ad for Bombay Gin.
Then I asked her about her week.
The nurse told me she had experienced a Code Blue in men’s surgical.
I asked her what that meant.
A Code Blue was a heart attack victim.
She had come on duty and found a man had fallen from his bed in the throes of a heart attack and was lying on the floor.
She told me she didn’t panic or get emotional, her training just kicked in and she lifted the guy onto his bed then phoned internally for the crash truck with the paddles for heart attack victims.
Unfortunately they couldn’t revive the man, and he died.
My nursing friend told me this in a very matter of fact way, stressing that her training had really worked.
And then I thought, I just work in advertising.
Advertising is simply an office job.
I don’t think I could have coped with a heart attack victim the way my friend had.
Because I did an office job, that’s all.”

I found two things interesting about what Nicholas wrote.

First: it’s exactly what John Webster, maybe the best creative to work in advertising, always used to say.

“We don’t do anything important like teachers, or nurses, or firemen.

We just have a bit of fun and entertain people.”

Second: it reminded me of what John Ward used to say.

He was CDP’s head of planning when they were arguably the best agency there was.

“You have to understand that advertising rates in importance in most people’s lives alongside washing up the milk-bottles before you put them out at night.”

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12 comments

Another lovely post Dave.

A colleague of mine always says, “it’s only advertising”, which is a great thing to keep in the back of our minds.

My only comment would be that along with the people agency-side changing, I think as a whole, our clients also treat advertising vastly differently than they used to, adding (often unnecessary) layers of complexity/severity.

Bean-counters who have zero advertising experience but call themselves admen are not helping either.
By that logic I use a Mac at work, an iPhone on the road and an iPad at home makes me an apple designer.

its a fabulous post which gives us an alternate perspective . clients feel that their business is serious because its results/ sales driven and agencies mistakenly assume that the route to achieve it should be serious as well.

You’re right Nick. London doesn’t give a fuck about the rest of the world. When I lost my job in London after saving some top people’s asses big time, the only job I could get was in Russia or Saudi Arabia. My wife had just decided to clear off, and everything was falling apart around me. All the people I thought were friends did nothing, but there were a few. Kate Morris, head of HR kindly kept me on for 3 months while I tried to get over it, busting my ass working for a company on the crappiest business and coming up with award winning headlines in my lunch hour which I never ever got any recognition for whatsoever. One day I happened to walk into the mens loo to see one of these idiots facing-up in front of the mirror. What a dick head. Someone reminded me of him the other day when she said “Do you ever think you are a genius?” I laughed and answered “Definitely not!” Then, when I left, they fired the drunk female account director who ruined the whole group in the first place: so, the top brass had ruined and lost a whole loyal team that had taken years to build,and left themselves with nothing. Unperturbed I tried my luck in Russia. There I was told off for working too hard and too fast, so they sacked me because they would all have got found out for being a bunch of completely lazy bastards. The staff wanted me to lead a revolution, but I refused because I do not kill the person who hires me. I am as loyal as a dog. They then tried to send me to Hungary but I told them where they could shove it. Next I was given another job in Russia and my boss fucked-up and blamed it on me, telling all the headhunters in town it was my fault he failed.So I was sent to Saudi Arabia. In London, many headhunters term it as”The graveyard of advertising” but Jo McMillan was a brilliant headhunter and she found me a great job. I would still be there now if it had not been for 911. Well, I went back again to another agency in Riyadh. The place is hell on earth, and whilst there, I beat BBDO three times in a row, and my lousy MD lost all the business for me and tried to dump the responsibility on me as CD, so I resigned. Coming back to London, every bloody headhunter told me I’m too old, and I’ve worked in Saudi Arabia. So, I said, why don’t you look at the book? and they were all shocked except Jo. “Oh” they said, “it’s full of ideas!” to see that where they were used to seeing books form the KSA full of crappy puns they saw real advertising that worked. This industry fails people, through jealousy, connivance, and greed and eventually, by doing so, it is going to reap its own dire rewards. Advertising R.I.P.

Kev. I have some questions. Who are the “…top-peoples’ asses…” you saved. And how? What were the award-winning headlines that were stolen from you? (That’s a big claim to make on a public forum.) What does “…facing-up in front of the mirror…” mean? And when you were made redundant, what did you expect your friends to do about it? Finally, do you have any access to firearms?

Lol! Dear ConcernedOfLondon, The top people’s asses will remain anonymous as I’m talking about principles over personalities as I overheard one of them remark once when asked “Who’s he?” reply “I don’t know.” So, “I don’t know either.” as for me these people no longer exist. The Award Winning line was written on 12 D&AD Silver award ads, and I believe Three Campaign Award Silver ads. It’s not a big claim. As I stand before God, I swear on the Bible It is a fact, so no need to run away, because it is a fact that should have made my career and it ruined it because I cannot tell you any more than that because it would upset people. They know who they are, and if their conscience is clear that’s fine by me too because I’m talking about principles, not about ruining people’s lives or careers, (even if they ruined my career) because they may have simply forgotten to put me on the list, but I gave them the opportunity through the D&AD to set the books straight and D&AD never came back to me. Facing up in front of the mirror is when you see someone talking to themselves as if in a meeting when they are, in fact, alone in front of a mirror. Regarding redundancy, there used to be time when you could make a phonecall to a friend and get a job, but people don’t do that now. They’d rather see you rot and die than help you. So, as I could not get a job in Adland, I went and worked for a charity for people with disabilities for 7 years and although having to deal with people on a daily basis who would throw the dinner or fresh tea I made for them over me, swear at me, kick me, punch me, threaten me, and make me clean out their bath sometimes after they had defecated in it, because these people were mentally ill, and did no know what they were doing, it made me reflect on the way Advertising shoots itself in the foot every time with it’s own mental illness of more. Regarding firearms, I would say humility and patience are far better things to work towards than investing in a product whose only purpose is to kill and injure another human being. No award for anything is worth that. As Nick’s nurse made clear, however, unfortunately, the NHS and Mental Heath Services in the UK are just as hopelessly managed as the advertising business through too much red tape. I left that industry because the managers don’t care about the staff, because some of them just care about ticking their own boxes and driving around in expensive cars looking good and doing nothing. On one occasion I had to fight with the regional director to get a kitchen floor resurfaced when it had been in a state of collapse whilst being used by service users. On another, my car broke down whilst transporting a service user to his holiday home and the Charity never compensated for the loss of my car. That was when I left, because they just take caring people for mugs.

Who are the great people you’d rather talk about? (It would be lovely if you occasionally talked about them rather than the people who want to see you “rot and die, rather than help you.” (I’ve never met anyone like that in advertising, if I’m honest.)